Malaria remains humanity's most deadly infectious disease. The WHO estimates that there were 228 million cases of malaria and 405,000 deaths in 2018.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “We saw with the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in West Africa that we lost more people to malaria, for instance than, we lost to the Ebola outbreak. Let us not repeat that with Covid-19.”
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Disruption from the Covid-19 pandemic could set ongoing malaria campaigns back so badly that deaths from the mosquito-borne disease double and erase 20 years of progress by anti-malaria campaigns.
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WHO has predicted that malaria deaths in sub-Saharan Africa might reach almost 770,000 this year if the distribution of medicines and mosquito nets is halted.
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At the time of writing Africa has suffered 2,496 deaths from Covid-19 (14MAY)
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